Reading Between the Lines: DOB’s Interview with Atlanta Braves AGM Coppolella

Apr 10, 2015; Atlanta, GA, USA; A general view of an official base prior to the game between the Atlanta Braves and New York Mets at Turner Field. Mandatory Credit: Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports

This was pretty close to being the interview that we all would have wanted to have with a senior member of the Braves’ front office.  David O’Brien, beat writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, asked several “fan questions” of Assistant General Manager John Coppolella (“Coppy”), the man pretty much at the epicenter of a myriad of player personnel moves made by the club over the past 11 months.  The complete interview can be read here.

The only gotcha here is that we can only read the words on the page – we have to guess at the nuances that might have been present:  the uneasy shifting in the chair, the hestitation, the body language… after all, O’Brien didn’t have Coppy tied up to a lie-detector machine, but nor did he convey his take on what he might have read into the answers he was given.

Nonetheless, I did ask O’Brien if he had any thoughts about what he heard first hand on one specific question.  He declined to respond.

So that’s our job… to try and see if we can interpret “GM-speak” from Coppolella’s answers to guess where the club is heading from here.

Hopefully the direction is “up”.

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